by Michael Fassbender

Created on: October 06, 2008

In the summer of 1918, with Civil War raging and its outcome still uncertain, Russia's last Tsar was murdered along with his family and four servants. Their killers disposed of the bodies hastily, as the execution was part of a plan to retreat. The bodies were left in a shallow grave, but there they would remain until after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The former Tsar had actually been a model prisoner. Even at the beginning of the Revolution, he had been compliant, sincerely trying to do what was best for Russia. In February 1917, when the first wave of the Revolution created a new Provisional Government, Nikolai II abdicated on his own behalf and on that of his son, Aleksei. Under the Provisional Government, he and his family were not permitted to go where they would, but at first they were held at a familiar estate at Tsarskoye Selo. While Nikolai II was aggrieved at the decline in fortune with which his family had suffered, there is also reason to believe that he was relieved no longer to carry the burden of Russia's fate. He had never had the temperament of an Emperor, and at last he could focus his attention on his family alone. Later in the summer, they were moved to Tobolsk, where the terms of their arrest remained largely the same.

Their fortunes changed radically with the October Revolution. The new government was both vastly more hostile to him and to what he represented, and far more attentive to power and the elimination of potential rivals. Moreover, the proclamation of a Soviet state resulted in a series of revolts all over the country, leading to a protracted Civil War. At the same time, the outright elimination of the Royal Family was an act that the Soviets could not yet contemplate in a casual manner. The ties of kinship that the Romanovs enjoyed with European royalty, including the English Royal Family, made the prospect of their murder a potential international incident. In the early days of the war, with a hold on power that was still all too fragile, the Soviets could neither kill the Romanovs outright, nor could they permit a shift in the fortunes of war to allow their enemies to acquire such a useful asset.

In April, 1918, they were transferred to Yekaterinburg, a remote city in the Ural Mountains. It was not a smooth operation; communications were still primitive, and all the more so in the wilder parts of the country. Rumors, such as the belief in Tobolsk that monarchist elements were trying to capture the former Tsar, and the assumption

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